


Breathe

by Athanasa



Series: Turncoat [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Garlean, Injury Recovery, M/M, POV Second Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Referenced Civilian Casualties, referenced child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 19:03:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15802665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athanasa/pseuds/Athanasa
Summary: It's only a memory and you know it. You're in the present, not back then. Breathe, earth, push on.(Memories of Verdant Hell)





	Breathe

_ Breathe _ .

You shut the door to the main hall behind yourself, leaning heavily against it. The handle digs into your back, the stump of your leg and ribs ache, the scars on your face itch.  _ Breathe _ . Even with your eyes closed, those  golden eyes float in your vision. The smells return.  Soil, rotten wood and leaves.  Loam .  Bracken. Birdsong, insects chirping.  _ The shocked intake of breath and a terrified squeak. _

_ Breathe. _

Push that aside. Or let it run, but just keep it locked in a corner of your head. Why is that resurfacing now? Because of Jaing’s eyes? You’ve seen  golden eyes before, on faces more like the child than hers. So  _ why now _ ? Scrambled memories. Nothing more. It’ll fade in time.

_ Breathe. _

You take deep, steadying breaths. Deep enough to make your chest twinge and the dressing over the hole (small now, access no longer required so finally allowed to heal closed irritatingly slowly), but the pain is grounding. The pain is in the here and now, not the  _ then _ and  _ there _ . It helps.

_ Earth. _

Push it away, clear it, work around it. It can settle and process somewhere else for now. For now, you have good news. Good for both of you.  _ Both _ causes a swell of something positive and warm within your chest and helps to push away the memories, its glow helping to drown out the dark.

_ Earth. _

Somehow – you’re not going to question serendipity – that golden eyed Keeper managed to get her paws on a set of  _ magitek armour _ . By her description, top tier Imperial officer armour, or similar levels of technology. Sold to her with an “it will fit” guarantee. It didn’t.  _ Movement assisting servos _ .

In short, exactly what both you and Talios need. Oh, you don’t need the whole suit. The left leg will be fine for you. If it fits. If it’s imperial salvage, or based off imperial designs, the machinery for that side can be cannibalised. _The smell of soil._ It’ll do – from what you understand, it takes half a turn for an amputated limb to settle enough for a more permanent fitted prosthesis. A powered exoskeleton makes a perfect halfway house.

And for Talios? Depending on how bad his spinal injuries really are – once he’s allowed to _attempt_ walking – he might well need that suit more than you. Upper body motion seems unaffected, thank Ice.

_ Push on. _

It’s progress. Most importantly, it’s readily available without raising eyebrows or needing to lean on connections to Garlemald.  _ Warm dampness, seeping through your gauntlets. _ You’re both useless to the empire as foot soldiers now (hah, you’re half a foot soldier). And Talios –  _ that warm welling of emotion once more  _ – still has reason to stay here. Unfinished and unexplored connections to Ishgard. And you? Home is where squad is. Where Talios is.

_ Push on. _

You start down the corridor to the infirmary, driven by a goal now. Even if it’s a short one, you can string your life together with a series of goals. Hopefully, this will brighten Talios’ day.

_ Push on. _


End file.
